Mars Has Ice, Still Needs Women

I have a confession to make. I dislike the word “woot” in the same way that I’m not fond of “LOL.” Things are not funnier because you tacked “LOL” after them. In fact, I would wager that 96% of things that are given a LOL designation resulted in absolutely no actual LOLing. The same way with “woot.” Wooting does not make something cooler. Wooting is to designate something that is inherently cool and needs no adjustment.

But I will concede that the most honest woot you will see this year came from the Phoenix Mars Lander, when it announced we found ice on Mars. Well, we didn’t. We were minding our business and eating pizza at the time. But the “we” of the species, I guess.

Basically, you can see the ice disappearing in an animated gif over at Wired, where it sublimed over the course of four days. And because I attended school in Alabama (which I did), I know that subliming is a kind of insidious advertising using hidden images the human eye can’t see to make you want things and not know why. It’s been outlawed on Earth, which is why they spotted it on Mars. Honest.

Anyway. This lets us know two very important things.

First, we are this much closer to drinking iced coffee on the surface of Mars.